10 Steps to a Dream

Love is the Foundation.

It is the spark behind creation.  It’s the motivation to move, to evolve.  It’s the fuel which sustains the soul when on the journey to a dream.

My dream is I have realized my potential as an I/We/ALL and am aligned with the flow of the Universe as a model for others to do the same.  You cannot give what you do not have.  Thus, even though I’m still playing with this goal, it’s already achieved.  I am the Silent Teacher and the lessons are taught to those who need them simply by living.  My intention has collapsed the wave function and manifested into reality.  I have become aware of my dream and how powerful it is.

To effectively coach my clients, I must first identify their dreams.  This is their catalyst—the love that provides them the inspiration to change.  Change isn’t easy, however.  Run one hundred meters straight ahead and compare that effort to running ten meters to the left and ten meters to the right five times in succession.  The distance covered is equal in both cases.  But the amount of energy expended in the second scenario will be greater than the first.  “An object in motion stays in motion,” some would say.  And while Newtonian Laws definitely apply to the example above, the primary concept as it applies to reaching one’s dream is balance.

For me, my dream would remain out of my reach until I could balance the two sides of my brain.  Like so many of my clients, left, logical thinking dominated my actions.  I was raised in a world where 1+1=2.  The fact that 1+1 could equal 11 or one plus one might equal We was not encouraged.  Intuition and creativity, if not frowned upon, was rarely nurtured.  I became result oriented, as a result (see?).  Thus, I focused more on achievement than enjoying the process.  Dr. Movement was my chief physician, prescribing “shoulds”, “gottas”, and “musts’ until I was inundated by the demands of life instead of living the life I demanded.  I needed the yin of Dr. Quiet to help me balance the yang of Dr. Movement.

My clients face the same dilemma.  Reaching their goals is always predicated on them balancing the forces in their lives.  And by living the example, I find that my coaching can not only be more gentle—it can be more effective in giving them a stable foundation off which to move toward their dream.

The next step is deciding what the next step is.  Luckily, despite the plethora of possibilities, there are really only three choices: the optimal one, the suboptimal one, and doing nothing.  The optimal one is the one which we all hope to choose.  But sometimes that takes a bit of trial and error.  So even if the choice made ends up being the suboptimal one, at least that’s movement.  And moving in the wrong direction is better than not moving at all.  It’s a chance to meet the Pain Teacher.  And she’s quite the motivator.  Her lessons are rarely subtle and often will, as Osho puts it, punch you in the face! 

Leukemia became my teacher.  It forced me to slow down.  And then it allowed me to work in.  To write a book.  To open a studio.  To create another life with my wife.  It has given me the chance to enter into the ultimate ALL relationship and find out through study, introspection, and getting in touch with my soul that I am everything and everything is me.

If I had chosen to do nothing, no growth would have occurred.  And while that may be the best course of (non)action if I need more time to gather the necessary information with which to make an informed decision, it’s the worst possible choice if grounded in apathy.  That’s the opposite of love.  That’s the opposite of my dream.

Since I’ve already mentioned two of the Four Doctors, allow me to now introduce the other two essential members of a person’s Dream Team: Dr. Diet and Dr. Happiness.  Together with Dr. Quiet and Dr. Movement, these physicians offer sage advice to anyone willing to listen to the healing wisdom that resides in all of us.   

The prescriptions my doctors had for me were simple.  Dr. Quiet suggested breathing practice that I learned at CP4.  Dr. Movement asked me to have more sex (can you write that out for me, Doc?) while Dr. Happiness recommended I take one day completely off work a week.  Finally, Dr. Diet told me to get in touch with my Soul and ask it for guidance when choosing what/how to eat. 

The advice for my clients will be based on counsel with their own doctors.  And regardless of what action points are mentioned, I will urge them to focus on just one from each of their physicians so that they don’t suffer from paralysis by analysis. 

Now that I had a plan of action, I needed to take account of the resources at my disposal.  First, how willing was I to realize my dream?  Sounds like a crazy question.  But if my desire wasn’t at least a seven on a scale of one to ten, then I needed to do go back to the dreaming board.  I needed a dream that was strong enough to anchor me when the tides of chaos threatened to drown me.  Even more, I needed a dream big enough so that I didn’t need a crisis.  Got it!

Tied closely to willingness is energy—how much did I have to spare?  If I was eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), filled with Caffeine, Refined flour/sugar, Additives/Alcohol, and Processed junk (CRAP), then I was going to be sorely limited.  Luckily, I was informed enough to understand the consequences of treating my body like a garbage dump and had been consistently practicing the same nutritional strategies I preach to my clientele.  So my energy was good to go.

Finances were next.  How much money would I need to realize my dream?  Well, I had already spent tens of thousands of dollars in education.  Opening my studio was a huge financial hurdle, too.  But I knew that investing in my self would ultimately allow the greatest return.  So much of the necessary monetary commitment had already been made over the past decade.  Indeed, the health of my business along with the results and performance of my clientele testified to the benefit of my investment strategy.  Time was what I really needed to consider.  Luckily, my passion and my profession are literally one in the same.  So finding time would be dangerously easy.  The hard part would be ensuring the difference between my play and work was defined enough so that it didn’t interfere with maximizing my ALL relationships with my family and friends. 

Lastly I needed to look at what equipment I would need to take on this journey.  And after careful analysis, I acknowledged that my holistic approach to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being had made my mind and body the perfect tools to facilitate my dream.  The Six Foundational Principles of my friend and mentor, Paul Chek, had served me well.  I didn’t suffer from stinking thinking.  I breathed the way Nature intended.  My hydration and nutrition practices over the past few years had helped transform my body from Leukemia Survivor to a Master in the Art of Living.  And while I admittedly still pushed the envelope of balancing working out with working in, the skills I have learned under Paul’s tutelage had increased my margin for error.  Quality sleep along with the other Foundational Principles had improved my resiliency for the stress of exercise and triathlon specifically.

And the best part of this whole experience is that I have actually lived what I teach.  I’ve suffered from many of the same injuries and illnesses as my clientele.  And while I may not have appreciated it at the time, each one of the hurdles I’ve had to overcome has made me a better coach—someone who can speak from personal history and not just from a book.  You can read all you want about how to ride a bike.  But in the end, you have to take the training wheels off and risk the dangers of the road or you’re just another talking head.  I’m a walking example (or swimming or riding example as the case may be) of how the Six Foundational Principles of Health facilitate a person achieving a dream.

Here’s where it gets tricky for left brain dominant people like me.  The body has seven control centers or chakras that also must be well tuned to fully realize its potential.  Unfortunately, most people can’t even see the chakras, so believing in them is a difficult leap of faith—one that the logical mind can’t easily make.  But with a bit of practice, along with a genuine openness to the intuitive, right side of the brain, one can learn to literally feel the energy coming from these seven chakras.  The process is a bit scary for the practitioner.  It requires the person to become empty, to release all preconceived thoughts or emotions.  In essence, it’s a letting go of yourself so you can read what’s happening within the client. 

What I’m looking for are distinct differences in the aura of a client.  Discrepancies between front and back are often indicative of imbalances between desire and will.  Symptoms can then be correlated to the client’s pain tree or five most stressful events or any complaint from which with the client may be currently suffering.  Of course, the body is so complex that finding the “mother” of the problem takes a very skilled coach.  For example, too much tension (i.e. energy) in a particular chakra may manifest as excessive energy in another chakra as the client feels “safe” dumping that energy into a different area than the true origin.  But that’s what makes my job so much fun.  It’s part science and part art.  It’s right brain with a dash of left brain.  And it requires continual growing as both a practitioner and a person.

The best place to begin working with a client is, ironically enough, often the root chakra.  Regardless of where treatment is initiated, however, I have a number of tools at my disposal.  Tuning forks and Tibetan bowls spoke to me when at the Institute, and I immediately came home and bought some for my practice.  But I can also use my voice, drums, breath work, zone exercises, or any other modality which most resonates with the client.  Paul has helped again, providing organ maps and explaining the cycle of Chi through the body.  Healing is most definitely a partnership, multifaceted and beautifully simple in its intricacy.  Kind of like the Universe, I guess….

Which brings me to Self Reflection.  Ignorance is bliss.  Before I knew the importance of honoring my circadian rhythms, I would sacrifice the restorative powers of sleep to hang out with friends or finish watching a movie.  I didn’t fully understand how that choice made the path to my goal of becoming a professional cyclist more difficult to navigate.  I didn’t possess the knowledge I needed to make an informed decision.  Likewise, if a client doesn’t have enough accurate information to change, the client won’t change.  The client needs a coach (or sometimes the Pain Teacher) to show them how each decision is moving them toward or away from their dream.        

I retired from professional cycling before I had enough understanding of how the body works to benefit from my knowledge of health.  But the new state of awareness I gained during my studies at the CHEK Institute has allowed me to obtain an even higher level of personal development—as an athlete; as a coach; as a person; as a practitioner.  In every role I have as part of my ALL relationships with my family, my friends, or the world during this lifetime, I have reached a higher vibration which I know resonates beautifully with my dream.  And these ten steps will allow me to continually evolve to finer frequencies, attracting others who are brave enough to face their own evolution thanks to the example I live daily.